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Maddon one of baseball's best managers

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Considered one of baseball’s most popular managers presently, Maddon is gearing up for his second season at the Chicago Cubs’ helm after a wildly successful eight-year run leading the previously moribund Tampa Bay Rays.

In turn, Maddon keeps Hazleton front and center in his dealings with the national press and by returning here every holiday season to promote his Hazleton Integration Project.

But it’s baseball that has always been in his blood, particularly teaching young players.

Unlike many managers in today’s game, the 61-year-old Maddon has a unique ability to balance sound baseball strategy with the ability to understand his players and relate to them.

His out of the box thinking characterized his run in Tampa Bay, where he took an average roster with few stars to a World Series appearance in 2008 and four playoff appearances in eight seasons. He’s using that same approach in Chicago, only he has more stars and a bigger budget at his disposal.

Maddon was known in Tampa for giving his players opportunities to exhibit their personalities, in much the same way that he exhibits his own. Just one example of such thing in Tampa Bay was the annual tradition he established of having rookies dress up. Rays rookies once dressed up as Mario Bros characters.

But Maddon is not known only for these idiosyncratic procedures but for posting philosophical type quotes on bulletin boards in the clubhouse. The type of quote he would post is similar to one he uttered in his introductory press conference in Chicago in November.

“Don’t ever permit the pressure to exceed the pleasure.”

In that introductory press conference, Maddon told reporters he was going “to live downtown” and that he wanted “to feel the energy”. He raved about the challenge of managing a team which hadn’t won the World Series since 1908.

And in that same press conference, which was held in a bar near Wrigley Field in Chicago, Maddon promised to buy reporters “a shot and a beer — the Hazleton way.’’

Maddon is a baseball lifer from his days playing for the late Ray Saul in the Hazleton Little League through playing for Ed “Bud’’ Morgan at Hazleton High School and beyond. He signed with the California Angels in 1975 as a catcher after playing baseball and football at Lafayette College. He never advanced past Single-A though. He simply was not talented enough.

But way back when, it was apparent that Maddon would be a coach. After three seasons trying to make it as a player, Maddon began as a scout for the Angels, before eventually filling roles as coach, minor league roving hitting instructor and manager in the Angels’ farm system before taking his rightful spot as bench coach for the major league squad.

Before Mike Scioscia, the Angels rarely enjoyed success, but it was Maddon who was the constant. Every new manager to come to town kept Maddon on the staff, knowing he was a crucial piece to any possible success the team could have.

Maddon grew up the son of an Italian father and Polish mother, both of whom were blue collar workers—his father owned a plumbing shop, his mother was and still is a waitress. That background instilled in Joe a superior work ethic to go along with his rambunctious personality.

As is the case with so many children of immigrants, Maddon had a desire to fulfill his family’s intended destiny when coming to the new world.

The advantage Maddon had over his ancestors was a free mind which desired to learn and take in as much knowledge as he could attain. It’s made him one of the sharpest minds in baseball in the 21st century.

He’s a firm believer is sabermetrics, that statistical data is crucial, but so too, are relationships and team building.

Players still need a manager they can trust, a manager they know has their back, a manager they know will put them in the best position to succeed.

Someone like Joe Maddon.

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